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National Park Service Continues To Talk Climate Change Despite Administration's Position

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Is the National Park Service an outlier in the Trump administration when it comes to climate change?

That question arises not only when you look at the president's efforts to halt President Obama's work on climate change, but also in light of news that the U.S. Department of Energy's website recently was sanitized of climate change materials adopted by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Park Service just rolled out a four-color brochure on climate change impacts around the country. 

Gone from DOE's site are a video about the 2016 Paris climate agreement, the link to climate.data.gov, another link to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration's National Climate Data Center, and one to the National Climate Assessment. The changes were reported last week by E&E News.

The site does have a link to the president's Climate Action Plan, but it leads to a page with the message, "Thank you for your interest in this subject. Stay tuned as we continue to update whitehouse.gov"

Interestingly, that page does offer a link to the Obama Archive, which takes you to another page listing President Obama's work on health care, climate and energy, American leadership, economic progress, and equality and social progress. 

As for the Park Service, the agency just released a brochure that discusses the many challenges the National Park System is facing due to climate change. It touches on melting glaciers, rising seas, altered ecosystems, and species endangered by climate change. Too, it mentions cultural aspects of the National Park System, such as Civil War-era Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park, that are threatened by the changes.

Fort Jefferson sits at the water’s edge at Dry Tortugas National Park. Sea level has risen steadily since completion of the fort in 1875, threatening several islands of the Dry Tortugas.

The Park Service also took time to include information on the human causes of climate change and how they can be mitigated.

Using historical climate data, scientists create climate models to project potential future climate changes. Continued GHG emissions will cause further warming and long-lasting changes, increasing the likelihood of irreversible impacts.

However, limiting climate change is not beyond our control. Substantial and sustained reductions in GHG emissions now, along with efforts to adapt to change that is inevitable or already happening, can limit climate change impacts.

The NPS recognizes that human activities—especially fossil fuel use and transportation—are changing the Earth’s climate. Together with our communities, we are taking action to reduce our own GHG emissions and model climate-friendly behaviors through sustainable operations and adaptation efforts.

 

Comments

Thank you for speaking truth to power, and to consumers and visitors who deserve to know the facts. We will all begin to see the effects of climate change in our beloved National Parks, be they rising coastlines, bleached coral reefs, changes in wildlife migration, faster erosion of rocks and river beds, etc. The great majority of us understand why this is happening and are willing to make changes where we can. Keep doing what you are doing. We ARE the resistance!


So, in its own words, the National Park Service "recognizes that human activiites--especially fossil fuel use and transportation--are changing the Earth's climate." Oh, really? Then please explain, NPS, why practically everything you do and plan for is asphalt and auto related.

Now 20 years ago, you rejected light rail for the South Rim of Grand Canyon. Remember? Of course not, because the powers-that-be wanted asphalt. Fine. Kid the public, but don't try rewriting history. Asphalt is the agency's middle name.


What is the average age of those behind this fake news? I believe it shows how bad are our school systems are now. There is no scientific evidence that "human activities" are effecting the climate whatsoever. It's sad to see how ignorant the NPS/DOE are...


Beach, if you obtained a degree beyond a high school diploma, i'd be shocked.


No, Beach, it isn't fake news. It is rather incomplete news. The distortion comes from the insistence that we humans can solve "the problem." The problem is that we can't--and that is largely because we won't. Then asking a bureaucracy to solve the problem is laughable. In government, bureaucracy IS the problem. Everyone makes up the science as they go along. If your job now depends on pleading climate change, well, are you going to say your boss is nuts?

If the Park Service were serious--really serious--about solving climate change, no superintendent would be asking for satellite parking lots in Yellowstone, Arches, and God knows where else. He or she would rather be insisting on limits, starting with corporate buses and SUVs. This type of vehicle will no longer be allowed in the park--period.

Now, whose toe have I stepped on? Plenty of toes. And so we write another news release or position paper about something we refuse to do.

We tried, in 1997, to get every car off the South Rim at Grand Canyon. The existing roads would be for light-rail, bicycles, and hikers only. Everyone coming to the canyon would make the transfer at Tusayan. Who killed the idea? Take your pick. If you can guess the interest group, they probably waded in, including Senator John McCain and the NPS. Oh, the horror of it all--asking people to take public transportation not tied to ribbons of asphalt.

So, the ice is melting. The oceans are rising. Climate change is serious, folks! And don't forget the "altered ecosystems." Well, how can we forget? Some of the worst ones, due entirely to the automobile, are inside our national parks.

This morning, we read that United Airlines has a massive public relations "problem." What? We're not "the friendly skies?" We treat you like cattle and tell you we love you? Now, how do you suppose that happened? It started happening when we killed our railroads and put all of our money on them. Same for the parks. When will I believe that the Park Service, aka my government, is serious about climate change? When I can take a train again to Yellowstone, get off at Gardiner and transfer to a yellow bus. Meanwhile, let's save some ink. "Responding to Climate Change" isn't worth a dime.


The U.S. government is unlikely to take climate change seriously with our anti-science president.  The rest of the world will have to take up the slack until he leaves


I wholeheartedly agree with you, Alfred, when  you say, "Responding to Climate Change" isn't worth a dime.

It's worth much, much more than just one thin dime.  It may be worth our specie's survival on this planet.  Thanks for recognizing and supporting that idea.


The rest of the world is overpopulated, Argalite--and broke. The only slack they will be taking up is to buy the coal we don't burn here. Oops! Is it okay to say overpopulated anymore, or did that go out with freedom of speech, too? We did say it, in the 1960s, when the world was just three billion people--and still honest. At least, Johnny Carson still allowed Paul Ehrlich to speak--and Rachel Carson was covered by CBS News talking about science when it still was science. You were not asked to "believe" a thing, merely to hear the scientists out.

We heard and rejected everything we just didn't want to hear. Then, unable to solve the actual problem, we invented one impossible to resolve. We are now going to "reverse" climate change. Good luck with that, Dorothy. It will take more than ruby slippers to tell God how to behave. You should have taken your birth control pills instead.


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